Synopsis

After watching an episode of The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, SpongeBob and Patrick see a commercial for the new book saying that Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy will be signing the book starting at 8 o'clock. SpongeBob is unhappy due to the fact that he has to go to boating school. Patrick suggests calling in sick, but SpongeBob does not want his perfect attendance record to end. They concoct a plan that SpongeBob will wait until he has to go to the bathroom, and then sneak to the comic book store when Mrs. Puff gives him the bathroom key.

Patrick drinking several bottles of water.

The next day in boating school, SpongeBob has to go. Mrs. Puff gives him the bathroom key and tells him to return it to her desk, with that SpongeBob exits the school. He and Patrick get to the store and get their books signed and walk through Jellyfish Fields. The jellyfish start to lift up Patrick and let him sit on them with Patrick stating they are "friendly." They then throw themselves into SpongeBob's net then leave. SpongeBob and Patrick continue ending up buying ice cream. Sadie congratulates SpongeBob on being her 100th customer and tells him he can come back for free ice cream anytime.

The two pursuit into Goo Lagoon where they get into a Badminton match with Sandy and a friend named Dale. SpongeBob and Patrick end Sandy's unbeatable streak and are convinced by their fans to play another round. The cops come and arrest Dale, who is an ex-con on probation, for eating gummy fish (in Bikini Bottom, a reference to drug use). A fish tells SpongeBob that Dale was a nice guy until he started cutting class and ever since then, he became a criminal. With this, SpongeBob fears that he will meet the same fate as Dale, so he continues off to school.

SpongeBob has to race through the Bikini Bottom hug fest where a woman grabs him. He forces her to let go and continues. He ends up in a pit of tar and starts to drown, remembering the last words that Mrs. Puff said to him. SpongeBob then fights his way out with a crowd cheering him on. He makes it back to the school with Mrs. Puff at the door and she becomes mad. He explains what he did, with her not knowing what he is talking about. Cops appear behind her because she is being arrested for missing jury duty. The car pulls off with her telling SpongeBob do not ditch. SpongeBob says he will never ditch again leaving her confused and angry with him wondering what "again" meant.

SpongeBob cannot go to see Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy because class starts before 8:00, but in the episode "New Student Starfish" SpongeBob says that class does not start until 9:00. So, the time school starts must have changed.

Patrick makes a reference to "Boating Buddies" when he says that Squidward calls in sick all the time so he does not have to go to boating school.

SpongeBob says he has a reputation for never missing one day of school. This makes it sound like he never has missed a day. This means he did not have school when he had the suds disease.

There are 46 flowers on the title card.

The two octopus children from "Squidville" make a cameo in the line for Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy's autograph.

Sandy's good at badminton and was undefeated before being beaten by SpongeBob and Patrick, yet the crowd only cheered for SpongeBob and not Patrick.

In "The Fry Cook Games," fish are cooked as fish sticks, and Lou sells them. In this episode, Dale gets arrested for eating Quasi-Gummy Chewy Candy Fish. The fish sticks were made from real fish, but the gummy fish were not, so Dale should not have gotten arrested, even though these are both just jokes and the cops might have thought the candy was real.

Dale's friend said that Dale has been a criminal ever since he started cutting class even though everyone else in this episode calls it ditching class.

The Bikini Bottom Tar Pits where SpongeBob thought he would drown to death is a parody of the Tar Pits in North America, where extinct skeletons are found.

This is the third episode to feature Goo Lagoon, but not to feature Larry the Lobster. The first was "Sun Bleached" and the second was "The Card."

This is the fourth episode where Mrs. Puff gets arrested. The first is "Hall Monitor," the second is "No Free Rides," and the third is "Doing Time." However, this is the first episode where SpongeBob is not involved in getting her arrested.